Mind-Body Medicine

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The Chair of the School of Mind-Body Medicine recently began a series of monthly video conferences, welcoming and interviewing guest speakers from the fields of mind-body medicine, integrative health care, and alternative approaches to health. All students and faculty from the School of Mind-Body Medicine are invited to participate in these video conferences.

The first speaker in the series was Larry Dossey, MD, a pioneering physician who has promoted the central role of both consciousness and spirituality in health and wellness. He introduced the breakthrough idea of eras in medicine, including Era I, the era of biomedical therapies, Era II, the era of mind-body medicine, and Era III, the era of non-local healing (emphasizing the power of prayer or distant intention for healing).

Highlights from the 19th International Congress of Hypnosis, Bremen, Germany, October 15-21, 2012

Michael Yapko, PhD, is a psychologist, psychotherapist, and a teacher of clinical hypnosis with an international reputation. Yapko has pioneered the application of hypnosis to clinical depression and authored a number of books in this area, including: Mindfulness and Hypnosis, Trancework, Depression is Contagious, and Treating Depression with Hypnosis.

David Willis began teaching at the School of Mind Body Medicine in 2010 with courses in Qualitative Methods and the Challenges of Midlife to Elderhood, following that with mentoring new graduate students. He is currently transitioning from his role of mentoring to working with students throughout their dissertation process, from Concept to Proposal to final Dissertation. Doctoral students are sure to benefit from his diverse perspective as a Cultural Anthropologist and 37 years of mentoring students in an academic environment.

Vera Lucia de Souza Moura, MD, is a Brazilian psychiatrist/psychoanalyst with two decades of clinical practice in Brazil prior to immigrating to the United States in the 1990’s. In the United States she worked for ten years at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and then joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Medicine, as a research instructor and, more recently, as an adjunct instructor. She completed the Mind-Body Skills Group training of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, and since 2001 has facilitated Mind-Body Skills Groups for health care professionals, health professional students, women with a history of abuse, and healthy people as well as those with chronic diseases. Over the years, Vera has studied ancient healing methods derived from indigenous cultures such as Andean (Kichwa), African, Afro-Brazilian, and Native American. She completed Michael Harner’s three year program in advanced shamanism, and served as an apprentice of a Kichwa Taita Iachak (shaman) from the Andes of Ecuador for ten years. In September 2012 she completed her master’s degree in Mind-Body Medicine at Saybrook University in California. In her private practice she facilitates mind-body skills groups, offers counseling in mind-body medicine and shamanic healing, as well as health and wellness coaching, to individual, clients, and groups.

Two faculty members from Saybrook’s College of Mind-Body Medicine are attending the meeting of the International Society of Hypnosis (ISH) in Bremen, Germany, October 17-21. Bremen is known to tourists as the site of the well-known fairy tale about the Bremen Town Musicians, made famous by the Brothers Grimm.

Neuroplasticity is the relatively new concept of the human brain, which highlights the capacity of the brain to recover after injury through organizing new functional pathways, and in part by actually growing new cells and regenerating nerves.

The attached photo shows Norman Doidge with two Saybrook University faculty members, Donald Moss and Eric Willmarth, attending the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) meeting in Toronto, Ontario on October 13, 2012.

Nurses are on the front line of care for the ill, wounded, and traumatized individuals and are called upon to deliver compassionate care to their clients. Empathy and compassion are essential qualities for successful healing environments, vital for both the providers and receivers of health-promoting interactions.

Betsy Murphy is a certified holistic nurse who is interested in exploring mind body methods to help preserve compassion in nurses. Her professional and personal practice of mindfulness meditation and yoga, along with Saybrook’s training in mind-body skills, guided her in the development of a 16-hour experiential education program to alleviate compassion fatigue in nursing professionals. This education program comprised her masters’ project, and she graduated with an MS in Mind-Body Medicine in August 2012.

Devorah Curtis, PhD, is the Director of Mentoring for the College of Mind-Body Medicine at Saybrook University, a unique position that aims to enrich student satisfaction and improve student retention by pairing students with a mentor from the time they start the program through graduation day.

Two faculty members from Saybrook’s College of Mind-Body Medicine will attend the annual meeting of The Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (SCEH) in Toronto, October 10-14. SCEH is a national organization of mental health and health professionals dedicated to the highest level of scientific inquiry and the conscientious application of hypnosis in the clinical setting.

The Biofeedback Federation of Europe (BFE) is a non-profit organization sponsoring a conference in Europe once each calendar year, promoting self-regulation oriented therapies, biofeedback, neurofeedback, and related therapies. The BFE sponsors an online journal, Psychophysiology Today, and regular webinars providing professional education in biofeedback and neurofeedback. The website for the BFE is www.bfe.org